1. Field of Invention
The current invention relates generally to apparatus, systems and methods related to Policy Management and Policy Managed Devices. More particularly, the apparatus, systems and methods relate to implementing policy managed elements and policy management systems. Specifically, the apparatus, systems and methods provide for generic methods and systems that are broadly applicable to policy managed elements and policy management systems (independent of application).
2. Description of Related Art
Policy Management and Policy Managed Devices are areas of great interest today, particularly for networked systems. The idea is that the rules of behaviour for these devices can be changed based on high level guidance provided by some supervisory entity. Examples of such supervised devices are network routers and cognitive radios. These devices can accept guidance such as (for example) permitted or prohibited routes, and permitted or prohibited frequencies. Of course policies can be much more complex, which has led to the development of entire languages for policy, such as the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and derivatives of languages such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL).
A number of architectures have been defined to describe the use of policy in these contexts. For instance RFC 3198, “Terminology for Policy-Based Management” defines a set of elements to be used in the implementation of policy based management systems. Other related RFC's include RFC 2748, “Common Open Policy Service Protocol”; RFC 2904, “AAA Authorization Framework”; and RFC 2753, “Framework for Policy-based Admission Control”. A policy architecture for “dynamic spectrum access” systems and “cognitive” radios is described in the IEEE 1900.5-2011 standard. While some of these standards have common or similar elements, each tailors the elements used for their specific application without defining a general method applicable to all the applications. One key issue is that these point solutions are not generally extensible to situations where there are multiple policy generation points and hierarchies of policy generation. Often the elements controlled by policy may themselves be generating policies for other devices. These situations are not generally covered in any of the policy management methods described today.
What is required is a generic policy management method which would be applicable across a wide range of applications. The method should allow for hierarchical approaches to policy management, and be able to be applied in a large number of policy management applications without being dependent of the specific policy formats and underlying conveyance protocols. Therefore, a better policy management method and system is desired.